Political Violence Confirms We’re Living in Third World America

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

Jan. 8., that was the day when Americans realized how screwed up their country really is. Left-wing journalist Arianna Huffington has been recently hawking her book called “Third World America,” and how can you argue with her? A Third World country is characterized by massive debt, (check), corrupt and broken elections (check), and a powerful ruling class (check.) And now we can add to that list political violence as seen in the Tuscon, Ariz. shooting that left six people dead and moderate Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition.

Of course, this is shocking but not surprising. In fact it was inevitable. For the past year I have been playing Cassandra and warning that the hatred coming from the right wing would eventually push people over the edge. We are in a precarious time in our country, with mass unemployment, home foreclosures, looming debt, foreign wars and a political system that has been strangled by corporate interests. It is easy for working class Americans to feel frustrated and want to lash out at someone.

After the 2008 elections, the right wing, realizing that working class was beginning to get riled up at the corporate class, diverted this anger to the Tea Party, which is funded by corporate interests. In a brilliant piece of bait and switch, the GOP, badly-tarnished by the disastrous Bush years, was re-branded as the Tea Party, which is essentially GOP 2.0 -- same bullshit, but in a different package.

So now, all those Americans who were angry about bailouts and government spending now are now mad at President Barack Obama, even though George W. Bush approved the bank bailout and ran up the budget with tax cuts to the rich and two unfunded wars. That would have been bad enough, but this rage wasn’t mere political annoyance, it was white-hot rage that had all the possibility of turning into violence. And the end product was politically-motivated terrorism that saw overweight seniors on Medicare screaming about how they wanted to keep government out of health care. During the 2009 health care debate, several Democratic legislators were targeted by violence, including having shots fired at their offices, having their offices targeted by racist graffiti and having gas lines cut at their homes.

Violence has been encouraged with demagogues like Sarah Palin calling for her followers to “reload” and putting Democrats, including Giffords, in cross hairs. Tea Party darling Sen. Sharron Angle suggested people take “second amendment remedies,” if the ballot didn’t work, and Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who is rapidly gaining a reputation as the nuttiest person in Congress, said she wanted her followers “armed and dangerous” about Barack Obama.

And of course there is the 24-hour stream of vitriol and disinformation coming from the right-wing media. FOX News regularly features commentators who accuse the president of being the anti Christ and warn of his government’s administrations attempts to destroy America. And FOX star commentator Glenn Beck has shot to prominence selling his brand of apocalyptic nonsense to people who fear that a black, moderate Democrat will destroy America as they know it.

Beck is the worst culprit and his acolytes have a considerable history of violence. In August 2009, Nancy Genovese was arrested outside an Air Force base along with a pair of binoculars, an assault rifle, shotgun and several rounds of ammunition. A year later Byron Williams, an unemployed carpenter and Beck fan, was arrested by the California Highway Partrol, while wearing body armor and carrying several guns. Williams was on his way to start a revolution by attacking the Tides Foundation, a little know left-wing non profit that was a regular target of Beck’s ire. After his arrest, Williams’ mother said her son was a regularly viewer of FOX News and Glenn Beck in particular.

What has been going on over the past 20 years is an increasing stream of eliminationist rhetoric directed at the left. According to David Neiwert, author of “The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right,” "Eliminationism is a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination."

This attitude was largely inspired by Rush Limbaugh, who did his best to turn liberal into a curse word, and carried on by harpy Ann Coulter, who has called for liberals to be executed and said The New York Times’ building needed to be blown up. Beck merely put the icing on the fruit cake.

Democrats have long warned of this. Former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was ridiculed when she warned that right-wing rhetoric would lead to ‘60s style violence . Speaking to the Huffington Post, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who received death threats and racist literature for his stance against Arizona’s immigration laws said, “The climate has gotten so toxic in our political discourse, setting up for this kind of reaction for too long. It's unfortunate to say that. I hate to say that. If you're an opponent, you're a deadly enemy."

In April 2009, the Department of Homeland Security release a much-maligned report, warning of the danger of right-wing terrorism. Turns out they were all to right. We have seen the enemy -- and the enemy is us.